Daring Bakers – 9th Challenge: Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream

This month’s challenge, hosted by Chris (AKA Mele Cotte), gave us a chance to try another buttercream recipe. Although it sounded very much like the Opera Cake challenge of May, I was happy to try my hand at another layer cake since I had missed the May challenge.

The Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream was picked from Great Cakes by Carole Walter. After printing the recipe, which came in at six (6) pages, I read it through. And again. And again. And again. This challenge came down to six (6) recipes:

1 Filbert Genoise
1 recipe sugar syrup, flavored with dark rum limoncello
1 recipe Praline Buttercream (buttercream + praline recipes)
1 recipe Apricot berry Glaze
1 recipe Ganache Glaze

A first for me was the praline part of the praline buttercream. Luckily, I like filberts. I tried the method suggested to remove the skins from filberts (roasting the filberts, then rubbing the skins off with the help of a tea towel), without much success. I finally found unskinned nuts at Famous Foods, which is rapidly becoming my go-to store for all things baking. 

I usually devote a single day to Daring Bakers challenges. This time around I thought I’d  break it up and do a bit each evening, since a lot of the components could be made in advance. By the third evening of prepping and doing dishes, however, I’d come to the conclusion I will return to the dedicated one-day schedule. I just wanted to get it done and over with.

At the end of it all, I was somewhat happy with the results. My cake collapsed during cooling, but it gave me a new appreciation for the masking power of glaze and chocolate ganache ( ). Piping the praline buttercream became a reminder to go with the flow, as bits of praline kept getting stuck in my one-size-too-small piping tip. It’s amazing the life lessons that can be gleamed from a DB challenge…

Bring on August!